iever in the maxim, 'Hit hard and hit first.' Would you
mind telling me what was the trouble?"

"It wasn't so much any one thing," replied Irving. "It was a culmination
of little things.--Oh, I suppose I started in wrong with the fellows
somehow."

He was silent for a moment, in dejection.

"A good many do that," said Dr. Davenport. "There would be small
progress in the world if there never was any rectifying of false
starts."

"I can hardly help it if I look young," said Irving. "That's one of my
troubles. I suppose I ought to avoid acting young. I haven't,
altogether. They call me Kiddy."

"We get hardened to nicknames," observed the rector. "But often they're
affectionate. At least I like to cherish that delusion with regard to
mine; my legs have the same curve as Napoleon's, and I have been known
as 'Old Hoopo' for years."

"But they don't call you that to your face."

"No, not exactly. Have they been calling you 'Kiddy' to your face?"

"It amounts to that." Irving narrated the remarks that he had overheard
in dormitory, and then described Westby's performance at the blackboard.

"That certainly deserved rebuke," agreed the rector. "Though I think
Westby was attempting to be facetious rather than insolent; I have never
seen anything to indicate that he was a malicious boy.--What was it that
Louis Collingwood did?"

Irving recited the offense.

"Weren't you a little hasty in assuming that he was trying to tease
you?" asked the rector. "When he persisted in wanting to show you how
the forward pass is made? I think it's quite likely he was sincere; he's
so enthusiastic over football that it doesn't occur to him that others
may not share his interest. I don't think Collingwood was trying to be
'fresh.' Of course, he shouldn't have lost his temper and banged the
ball at your door--but I think that hardly showed malice."

"It seemed to me it was insolent--and disorderly. I felt the fellows all
thought they could do anything with me and I would be afraid to report
them. And so I thought I'd show them I wasn't afraid."

"At the same time, three sheets is the heaviest punishment, short of
actual suspension, that we inflict. It seems hardly a penalty for
heedless or misguided jocularity."

"I think perhaps I was hard on Collingwood," admitted Irving.

"If he comes to you about it--maybe you'll feel disposed to modify the
punishment. And possibly the same with Westby."

"I don't feel sure that I've been too